


This Ain't a Love Song

by GenitalGrievous



Series: These Days [3]
Category: Speed Racer (2008)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-13
Updated: 2009-10-13
Packaged: 2018-01-16 22:11:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1363540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenitalGrievous/pseuds/GenitalGrievous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspector Detector leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Ain't a Love Song

“Hey, was Speed here today?” Detector asked as he gently shut the door behind him, loosening his tie with his free hand.   
X stepped out of the bedroom where he had been hastily dressing himself. “Yeah, he came by to ask for my advice about some trouble with Trixie.” X cursed himself inwardly for how easily the lie had come out.   
Detector laughed with a hint of forcefulness, “That sounds like a movie ‘The Trouble with Trixie’.”   
X chuckled awkwardly as he stepped up to Detector. “How was work?”  
Detector flung his tie on the back of the couch, and slipped out of his sports jacket, “Christ, it’s like all of this Royalton paperwork will never end; it seems like the entire CIB is gathered in the building working on this one case, it always feels so good to get home and be with you--away from all of that.”  
“It’ll get easy again, I know it will. With Royalton out of the way, none of the fixers will have anyone to fall back on--”  
“--Unless there’s a new Royalton waiting to take his place. X, you know that scares me every day. What if there’s more? What if Royalton wasn’t actually at the top--”  
“Worrying will get you no where.” X wrapped his arms around Detectors shoulders and held him against his chest for a few moments, “Take this whole thing one step at a time, I promise, it will all come clean.”  
“You’re always so sure.”  
“I’ve live with you for years, I learned.” X kissed Detector on the forehead gently, and broke away, making for the kitchenette. “I have a lasagna in the fridge, what do you say we heat it up and see if there aren’t any movies that we could watch?”  
“A nice peaceful night in, you know me too well.” Detector smiled, “You know, someone at work mentioned that ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ is on tonight, that could be fun.”  
“Sounds like a plan,” X smiled as Detector began fiddling with the television, “I’ll preheat the oven.”

“Speed, you know I’ve hardly seen you since you were discharged, no one has--” Trixie hesitated a moment, twirling the phone cord around her index finger.  
“Trix, you know me, I’m doing just fine. I just had to go work out some stuff with Racer X.”  
“What do you need to work out with him? Don’t you think that at this point you need your family around you?”  
“No, Trixie. At this point I think I need to seek the smaller comforts, wherever I can find them.”  
Trixie bit her lip, “Do you really think that will help you heal?”  
“Yes.” Speed hung the phone up, and leaned back in his bed. Talking to Trixie could grow so tedious.

Detector held the edge of the throw that he had wrapped himself up in out to X as he walked towards the couch. “We’re just in time, the movie’s only been on for a few moments.”  
“Great.” X forced a smile, and sat down next to Detector, who snuggled against him under the fleece.   
As Detector burrowed his cheek into X’s shoulder, his eyes caught sight of the vase of roses that had been carefully placed some weeks prior on the side table. They had wilted, their brown petals gathered around the translucent vase on the dusty tabletop, the water a grey murky colour. For the life of him, Detector could not remember when the roses had died, or even when the water had last been changed. He reached out and picked up one of the dry petals from the table and rubbed it between his fingertips, emitting a musty odour.   
“What’s going on?” X asked, leaning back to watch Detector’s behaviour.  
“Can you remember when they died? I can’t seem to remember--”  
“It must have happened recently.” X mused.  
“Huh. I guess we just lost track of them.” Detector said, dropping the petal’s remains back onto the tabletop.  
“We must have.”  
“Do you think we could get some more? They looked so--nice.”  
“I’ll see if I can tomorrow.”  
Detector turned back to the TV, but he couldn’t find himself drawn back into the noir classic, the characters seem static and uninteresting. He slid his hand along X’s thigh underneath the fleece throw, feeling the tight warmth of his leather pants.  
“I better put the lasagna in.” X rose and walked briskly towards the kitchenette. Detector frowned, but said nothing, choosing instead to wrap the throw tighter around his own frame.

Speed rolled over on his bed, smiling at a newspaper cutting he had pinned to his wall, it detailed the time Taejo, X, and him had won big at Casa Cristo. As he thought about X, he could feel his cock hardening underneath his flannel pajama pants. He reached down and rubbed the head, leaning back against his pillow with a firm smile. He worked his length up and down, trying to make his hand wrapped around his erection feel just the same way that X had.

Detector sat alone on the couch, Charlie was giving her final love filled speech after having escaped death yet again, and X’s half eaten lasagna had grown cold on the coffee table where it had been left. X had suddenly risen, and after a brief almost apologetic look towards Detector, had mumbled something about trying out some changes he had made to the Falling Star’s engine. Late night drives had never been rare, during all of the years that they had been together, but it seemed as though during the last few weeks X had left more and more, at inconvenient times, with little or no explanation. Detector wiped the edges of his eyes with his shirttails.   
“This scene always makes me weepy,” he said to no one in particular. 

X sat alone in the Falling Star, staring at the bright lights of Thunderhead Raceway from the parking lot, his leather-clad knuckles bent hard around the steering wheel. He could feel his cheeks heating up underneath his mask. Detector was right, though, no matter how hard he tried he could not remember at what point in time the vase of roses had died. It reminded him of trying to recall when Summer gave way to Fall, there never seemed to be a specific time, it just--gradually--changed.   
More than Summer, more than The Roses, X was thinking about when, at what point, he had stopped loving Detector. He couldn’t help but feel like the last few years of his life had been wasted, the love had faded away as quickly as it had arrived, and his plans were shattered. Ever since he was a teenager, he had counted on Detector for innumerable things, besides food and shelter, Detector had provided the emotional foundation to make his life actually worthwhile. Their life had been perfect.  
They had done so much together, always laughing. Going to CIB-sponsored events like masquerades, picnics, barbecues, and always delighting in being the couple out of place--The Inspector Detector and his mysterious companion the Harbinger of Boom. The rumours that had flitted about at all of the events, the questions, the wandering eyes, it was part of their delightful romantic adventure that they had created as a renegade duo. Somewhere along the way they had stopped going, at some point their idea of a good time had become sitting at home, alone, and eating an inexpensive dinner while watching ‘whatever movie was on TV.’   
X inhaled the smell of wet leather as his tears soaked the inside of his cowl, and he leaned back, staring up at the stars from the open roof of his car. He, they had counted on so much over the years, they had made so many plans. But even as X cried, and even as he felt the tightening pain gathering beneath his sternum, he knew that he was clinging hopelessly to something he had forever lost. He was wrong, everything he had planned, their love and their life had ceased a long time ago to be a romantic adventure.  
“Then I’m wrong, I’m wrong, I’m so very wrong to be sitting here alone and crying.” X thought to himself, he should be letting Detector go, he can’t be clinging to what isn’t his anymore. It wasn’t fair to him, it wasn’t fair to Detector, it was fair to--Speed. X cursed himself inwardly as he thought about Speed Racer, whom he had held in his arms that afternoon, whom he had fucked--made love?--to.   
X fumbled in his glove box trying to find his hidden pack of Marl Reds. His fingers met the familiar texture of paper and plastic as a pair of headlights caught his eyes and distracted him. He clutched the pack in his head and looked up at the space next to his.  
A car came to a gradual halt and in his haste to hide his tears from even a complete stranger, X began to pull out of his parking spot, struggling to light his cigarette at the same time..  
“Wait!” X hit the brakes as Detector stepped out of his beat up Chevy. “I--I thought I’d find you here. It seemed right.” Detector opened the door of the Falling Star and sat down in the passenger seat. “How did the engine changes work out?”  
“Huh?” X dropped his cigarette as he looked up, betraying his emotions with a crack in his voice, “Oh, they--they worked out well.”  
“X.”  
“Detector?”  
“Take your cowl off.”  
“I can’t, we’re, we’re in public--”  
“Take it off.”  
X looked down and complied, unzipping his cowl along the back of his head, and pulling it off to reveal his red, tearstained face.  
“I had a feeling it had come to this.”  
“Detector?”   
Detector placed his hand on X’s knee, trying harder than ever to keep his emotions in check. “Is this what you’ve been doing, all these years? These--nighttime drives?”  
“No--only--only recently. I--usually I just need the air--”  
“X. If the pain is the only reason that you’re clinging to this--I need you to be honest with me.” Detector took his glasses off and massaged the bridge of his nose roughly, trying to will the tears out of his own eyes.  
“Detector, I--” X reached down, attempting to clasp Detector’s hands in his own.  
“I should have realized it a long time ago,” Detector said, betraying the emotions that were assaulting him through his tone of voice, “But--well--it’s all over isn’t it?”  
“Detector, I need you to know--”  
“--That you did love me. I know. I still do love you, you know. I think I always will.” Detector massaged his face with his palms, be strong, be strong, “Make sure he takes care of you--Speed, I mean. Don’t let him hurt you--I’ve known you to long to--go and--”  
“How-did you?”  
“Intuition, I guess? You know, you can be so delicate. I--I do hope that he’s good to you. Seriously, I have loved you too long to just leave and let some kid hurt you.”  
X gripped Detector at the base of his skull and pulled him towards his lips for a rough kiss. Their tongues met between dry lips as their hands sound out small comforts on each others bodies, working beneath shirts, zips coming undone. As they broke for air, Detector kissed a tear away from X’s cheek, “I thought we had got away with the perfect crime, you know that? I had you all to myself for so long, I had to have known--eventually--”   
X silenced him with another brutal kiss, pulling him from the passenger seat to rest atop his hips, thrusting gently up against his pelvis.  
“It’s hard to--to admit--that this is the last time you’ll hold me in your arms,” Detector said wistfully, “but--I can’t. X, I can’t. It hurts too much.”  
Detector reached under X’s arm and opened the driver’s side door, deftly climbing out of the car. “I have to go, I won’t be at the apartment, but don’t--don’t worry about me. You always worry too much--” He turned away sharply and hesitated, before turning back and gripping the top of the window, leaning into the car, “Just remember he’s--he’s just a kid. What seems like the world to you might just be--puppy love for him.” Detector straightened up and turned back around, walking towards his car, “That’s what they told me about you.”  
X leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, feeling the tears starting again as Detector climbed into his own car and drove away.


End file.
